


Live Good

by coffeeandcas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 19:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14600196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandcas/pseuds/coffeeandcas
Summary: Jack's powers cannot resurrect Castiel. Mary was killed by Michael in the alternate world. Lucifer also perished, and that should have been a win.But Dean just can't do it anymore.





	Live Good

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something I've had in my head for days that I needed to write down. Un-beta'd, so all mistakes are my own :)

It’s all over very quickly. One minute Dean is sitting on the edge of a pier in some unknown backwater town, legs crossed at the ankles and swinging gently, just-finished beer in hand, and then he isn’t. He’s been watching the sunset, watching the colours explode over the water and keeping his mind carefully blank. He’s deliberately not thinking about anyone, anything, or anywhere that could pull him from the almost relaxed state he’s currently in. His mind is made up, nothing can change it, but he doesn’t want to torture himself further. Doesn’t want to feel that aching, hollow pain that has plagued him for weeks, doesn’t want to succumb to the shame and the self-disgust, the failure and the agony. He doesn’t want to remember. 

He just wants to watch the sunset for the last time. 

It’s been a long journey. He’d hitchhiked most of the way, with no real destination in mind, keeping his conversations with the truckers to a minimum. He’d thanked the last one, a guy with a grizzled beard and bright blue eyes that reminded him of someone he used to know, then he’d wandered aimlessly down a country lane, stopping at a dusty gas station to pick up some beers and a skin mag - out of habit, not interest - then had dumped the magazine in the trash on his way out and carried on walking. It’s warm, too warm for layers, but Dean needs his armor for this. His dad’s jacket and the amulet his brother gave him, plus his favourite plaid shirt and his softest jeans. It provides a little comfort. 

He wonders what his brother is doing right now. Sam and Jack had gone off on a hunt, would be gone three days. The night before they left they’d had a movie night and Dean had smiled properly for the first time in what felt like months. Seeing Sam and Jack interact was kind of beautiful, and Jack’s eyes had finally lost their apprehension when they turned in his direction. Dean had drunk a few beers, laughed with Sam over their movie selection, and had fallen asleep on the sofa. He’d woken with a blanket over him and the lights off and had taken himself off to bed stopping only once along the way. He’d cracked open Sam’s door just a little and stood watching his brother sleep for a while, remembering. Remembering Sammy as a little kid, cuddling up to him after a nightmare. He remembered Sam as a lanky college student who never wanted to be a part of hunting. And Sam as he is now, tall and strapping and independent, yet fiercely devoted to Dean. The best brother a guy could ever have.

He wandered back to his own room and sat down at his desk, and he wrote. He slept well that night. 

He toys with the gun in his hands, turning it over and feeling the familiar weight of it. The pearl handle is warm against his skin, the steel barrel cold. It feels right, to do it this way. His left hand strays from the weapon, upwards, to caress the amulet hanging around his neck and he thinks of Sam.

And a gentle smile touches his lips.

The single shot scares the birds from the nearby trees and six hundred miles away, Sam wakes from a nightmare with a gasp.   
  
***   
_  
_ _ Dear Sam, _

_ See, I’m learning. Sam, not Sammy. But who am I kidding, you’ll always be Sammy to me. My headstrong little brother who annoys the hell outta me but is also one of the best damn people I’ve ever known. _

_ I’ve been sitting here for an hour, and barely written a damn word. I don’t know how to say goodbye, never have. Never been good at it. Especially this time, now that it’s on my own terms, saying goodbye seems to be sticking in my throat. So that’s why this is short and sweet, because I don’t have the words to say everything I want to. How can I? How can I condense our lives down onto a couple sheets of paper? Everything we’ve been through, everything you’ve taught me… I’d be here for days. So I’m not gonna try. I’ve tried a hell of a lot of things, Sam, and none of them have worked. This is what I’ve chosen, and I want you to respect that. Know that leaving you always has been the toughest decision of my life, and this time it’s no easier. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me, and to understand. _

_ Please understand, Sam. I can’t do it anymore. It’s too hard. I’m too tired. You don’t have to worry, I’m sure it won’t hurt. Easy as falling asleep, right? And I promise your face will be the last thing I think of. _

_ Live good, Sammy. Get out. Take Jack and go find that apple pie life you always wanted. You deserve it. And tell Jack I'm sorry. Tell him I know now that you were right about him. And tell him I'll say hey to Cas for him.  _

_ I know I said no chick flick moments but I don't know how else to say goodbye. So humour me, and hear me out. _

_ Of all the moments in all the years I've been alive, the ones I spent by your side have been the best. And of all the people I've ever met, of everyone I’ve ever laid eyes upon, I've loved you the most. And ain’t nothing ever gonna change that.  _

_ See you on the other side, Sammy. I hope mom’s got the beers in.  _

_ Yours forever, _

_ Dean.  _   
  


***

They never find Dean’s body. Sam keeps a feverish eye on all the news outlets, calls all the hospitals in a fifty mile radius, calls them again and again over the upcoming days, but nobody has seen the man with green eyes the colour of candy apples with freckles that scatter across his skin like stars, with the shy smile and battered leather jacket belonging to someone long gone. And with each call, Sam grows more and more certain that Dean followed through with his plan, that he did it quietly with no fuss so that nobody had to pick up the pieces after him. 

The keys to the Impala had been resting on Dean’s neatly-made bed with a note saying ‘ _ Now she’s yours, do good by her _ ’ and when Sam had found them he had spent nearly an hour on his knees, the keys clutched in shaking hands, realising that the whole thing wasn’t some kind of garish nightmare. At first, in spite of Dean’s letter, he’s angry. He’s so angry he can’t see straight, can’t think straight, can barely eat, sleep or speak. He blames himself, and it eats away at him. He should have known, should have seen this coming. Dean’s depression was eating him up and he knew it, yet he never dreamed his brother would go this far. But as the days wear on, and he re-reads the letter a hundred times, a thousand times, it slowly makes sense. And it’s agony, but he starts to see it. Dean couldn’t go on. He’d been holding on to too much pain for too long and eventually it ate him up. 

Everything reminds him of Dean, and it’s torture. The sound of the Impala’s engine, the music on the radio, the smell of the laundry in the bunker, even the way Jack looks at him: all he sees is Dean. It takes him a week to go back into Dean’s bedroom and when he does he breaks down into grief-stricken sobs. Jack’s attempts to comfort him fall on deaf ears, and that night he sleeps alone on his brother’s bed, crying in his dreams, missing Dean so much it hurts.

The days pass, and it becomes easier to think of his brother. To remember the way he laughed so hard he would double over, or the crinkles at the corner of his eyes when he grinned softly, the swagger to his walk and the way he smelled. He opens Dean’s closet and looks through his clothes, bringing shirt after shirt to his nose to inhale his brother’s scent, pain inside dulling to a low burn as the familiarity provides a small comfort. 

One day, when he and Jack are eating in a diner, Sam orders a burger with extra fries and a coke instead of his usual salad and water, and Jack nods in understanding. When Sam wears his brother’s shirts, even though they’re too tight and too small on him, Jack doesn’t pass comment. When Sam takes Jack out on a case, Jack excels at everything. Because an apple pie life is behind Sam, it isn’t in the stars for him any more. It’s not what he wants. It feels now like he’s stepped into the shoes of the brother he admired and adored, and is guiding Jack to become a hunter in his own right. He’s Dean, leading the way and being the strong one, the one who always had Sam’s back. And Jack, in turn, is Sam’s inspiration and his rock, the way the Winchesters have always been for each other.

The kid even does research just for fun.

He misses Dean. He misses the banter in the Impala, the endless nights watching movies, the homemade burgers, the beer runs. He misses listening to the tinny sound of Dean’s music turned up too loud on his headphones, the sound of his breathing late at night back when they shared motel rooms. 

He just misses him. So much.

And when Sam’s driving the Impala late at night, one hand on the wheel and the other drumming out a beat on his thigh to the Zeppelin track on the radio with Jack by his side, he can look up at the sky and smile. Because the scattering of stars reminds him of the freckles that once adorned the face of the man he loved. And he hopes, wherever Dean is, that he’s found the peace that life could never give him. 


End file.
